Review of George Dillman Seminar

I went to the Dillman seminar in Toronto last weekend. Here’s what happened.

I arrived about 5 minutes late, paid my cash and sat down to watch. The room is filled with black belts that are almost universally in ‘non-fighting’ shape. There is even a guy with a ‘Karate Kid’ style head band. There were a smattering of kids, and about 20% women, 80% men. In total there were about 100 people.

Dillman himself has a huge pot belly, skinny legs and a blue gi top with ‘www.dillman.com’ in red writing on the back.

The first 20 minutes was demonstrating how he can make someone holding his wrist let go of him by hitting their forearm in the right spot.

What we doesn’t tell (but I notice) is that he’s using the classic rotate the wrist being held and pulling it up out of the guys grip at the same time he hits. In case you’re not familiar with this technique – it works _without_ needing to hit his forearm with the other hand. The whole group breaks up and tries it. (at least those that weren’t _writing_ down this pearl of wisdom). The funny thing was, that _no one_ there had seen this simple technique before.

He then proceeds to tell us that by standing on one foot makes him stronger (chi wise) and more able to break the hold. In extreme circumstances he’d ‘suck up the wind’, which mean inhaling their chi by just drawing a sharp breath in-wards while facing them.

He also tells us all sorts of stories that make him sound impressive.

Next he moves onto foot pressure points. He tells more stories, and then gets a few people to demo on. Basically he kneels down and puts his whole weight (about 250lbs) into their foot using his knuckle between the smaller bones on the outside of the foot. Predictably this hurts, and they move. One guy with obviously almost no training instinctually almost kicks him in the head.

The group is then asked to try this on each other. It really doesn’t hurt that much.

There are a few more of these points that he demonstrates, and talk of how he ‘blew a guys rib out of his back with a punch though 3 feet of padding’, ‘someone bought his out of print book for $350us, and thus buying his in print books is a good deal at $40cdn’.

Next he demo’d finger locks, also called ‘If I grab your finger and bend it all over, you’ll move to avoid it being broken’. Stupid.

There were some great questions from the audience as well. A classic from a morbidly obese woman, ‘how do I defend myself from roving street gangs?’. His advice: ‘drop the first one and the others will get scared and maybe run off’.

He then asked people to show him parts of a form they didn't understand. The only guy to ask, stumped him, and that topic was dropped.

The first half wound up with some basic wrist lock stuff.

The break was a lot more fun. One of Dillman’s senior instructors was brought over by my cousin, and I asked him about a technique that was shown, where a guy throws a punch, and the defender grabs its, steps beside the guy and does some counter.

I express to the guy my sceptism that he can block my punch, let alone catch my punch when I’m 2 ½ feet from him and his hands are at his side. I should have bet him money.

I tell him I’m going to punch beside his head (not wanting to really drop him), and if he can block then great. I whistle two past his head and back without him even touching them. His eyes widen a little, and then he changes tacks and tilts his head away at a 45 degrees to the side, and place his hands up in a guard ready to hit my punch.

I laughed at him and said, I wouldn't throw a punch if you’re doing that, I’d groin you instead ;) He got all pissed, muttered some stuff about ‘different approaches’ and wandered off. He seemed a little shaken. I was stunned. As such a high rank, he had obviously _never_ had a punch thrown at him for real – and believed that he could defend himself easily in ‘sucker punch’ range with his hands _down_.

Lots of ‘chi sucking’ talk, stories of ‘blowing ribs out the back of guys’, ‘pushing a car two feet sideways’, etc.

We also were told how to kill someone (I’m not kidding) – this is the order:

1. Say ‘HO’ real loud
2. stand on one foot, (or to be really strong wrap it around the back of your other leg)
3. Pointing your heart meridian on you hand at his third eye
4. suck in his chi with a strong in breath
5. tap him in the middle of the chest

He’s basically dead.

Furious scribbling could be heard though-out the room.

He then launched into how elephants talk with their third eye, energy moves in a clockwise rotation – proof you ask? Look at fans! That’s how they move! There was almost no demo stuff during the last half, just lots of really obvious lies and bullshit.

I left about an hour before it ended so I could get a ride out of there. I felt very dirty and showered for hours after I got home.

There was much more crap there, if you have questions, I’ll be happy to answer.